N4 Orthography Practice (表記)
表記 (orthography) is the part of the JLPT N4 vocabulary section where you see a word written in kana and have to choose how it's correctly written in kanji. It's a quick test of one thing: do you actually recognise the characters behind a word you already know how to say?
How the question works
You're shown a short word in hiragana — say, 「こうえん」 — and four kanji options. Only one spells that word; the others are real N4-level kanji words that look or feel similar. Because the wrong choices are genuine words (often sharing a component with the answer), you can't get there by elimination alone — you have to know the right characters.
On the real exam this is one of the faster sub-sections, so the goal is to answer confidently and bank the easy points before the reading passages eat your time.
Strategy & common traps
Read the kana first and picture the word's meaning before you look at the options — that stops a look-alike kanji from leading you astray. The classic trap is two words with overlapping components (think 校 vs 較 vs 効): they share a piece but mean completely different things, so check the whole character, not just the radical.
If two options both seem plausible, lean on meaning: which spelling matches the word you heard in your head? At N4, the spellings being tested are the ones tied to the most common vocabulary, so your reading habits — not rote memorisation — usually point to the answer.
About this N4 drill
These 300 questions are generated from real N4 vocabulary, and the distractors are pulled from other N4 kanji words — several deliberately share a character with the answer to keep them plausible. Miss one and you'll get the correct spelling, reading and meaning straight away, so the drill doubles as quick revision.
Practice now
Which is the correct way to write 「おみやげ」?
おみやげ
souvenir